Ebay/paypal policy change... Seller Beware!

[Rlibersky]

There is no such policy. The actual policy requires sellers to offer at least one form of electronic payment. It can be PayPal, a CC merchant account, or another approved payment service (see eBay for a list).

It may not be policy but they make it seem like it is. A least afew years ago when I couldn't buy anymore with just a credit card. They wanted my bank account listed with paypal before I could buy.

Ebay will eventually cause themselves to go out of business.

I'm sure they emailed something out about the new rating policy but for those of us that only buy who looks at it. I gave a 4 to a guy becuase his description was not quite accurate. Although it wasn't my intention to cause him the greive Ebay gave him. Not the best company anymore.

 

[removed account4]

There is no such policy. The actual policy requires sellers to offer at least one form of electronic payment. It can be PayPal, a CC merchant account, or another approved payment service (see eBay for a list).

It may not be policy but they make it seem like it is. A least afew years ago when I couldn't buy anymore with just a credit card. They wanted my bank account listed with paypal before I could buy.

Ebay will eventually cause themselves to go out of business.

I'm sure they emailed something out about the new rating policy but for those of us that only buy who looks at it. I gave a 4 to a guy becuase his description was not quite accurate. Although it wasn't my intention to cause him the greive Ebay gave him. Not the best company anymore.

eb00 will never go out of business.
they make millions of dollars a day on 3¢ insertion fees ...
they own payral and probably other stuff we don't know about ..
for every 10 people who stop using them,
there are 100 who start ...

 

[nickandre]

...and what if they don't release the funds?

FYI its more like 50 cent insertion charges...

 

[removed account4]

...and what if they don't release the funds?

FYI its more like 50 cent insertion charges...

you are right ...
i know something was 3¢ probably it making the title bold or something
silly like that ...

my point was that they penny and nickel and dime their millions, over and over again
every day ...

 

[moose10101]

Of course, my evilbay rating is excellent

It's impossible for you not to have an excellent rating if you're only a buyer. Sellers haven't been able to give negative feedback to buyers for more than a year, and feedback % is now based on the last 12 months. So all buyers who've had a transaction in the past year have a 100% rating.

 

[bobwysiwyg]

eb00 will never go out of business.
they make millions of dollars a day on 3¢ insertion fees ...
they own payral and probably other stuff we don't know about ..
for every 10 people who stop using them,
there are 100 who start ...

Well, at least they didn't make much $ for about an hour today. It seems they had a worldwide outage. They admitted it was an internal problem. I'm guessing there is one more unemployed programmer today. Article claims they make $2,000/second.

 

[telkwa]

I don't share the same view that many here do. FWIW, I am both an Ebay buyer and seller of photo related stuffs. The 21 day hold was well announced quite a long time ago. The transactions in which a hold may apply were quite well defined, but not all of these transactions result in a hold. Ebay & Paypal are not public services. They can set whatever terms they feel like, and if you aren't willing to accept them, don't use them. Part of these terms state that they may change the terms, so be ready for continued changes.

 

[Daniel Larsen]

It's impossible for you not to have an excellent rating if you're only a buyer. Sellers haven't been able to give negative feedback to buyers for more than a year, and feedback % is now based on the last 12 months. So all buyers who've had a transaction in the past year have a 100% rating.

This was the craziest, stupidest change the evil empire made and the reason that I gave up on it for selling or buying. I'll stick with KEH.

 

[dwdmguy]

You have to remember, for us U.S. citizens Paypal is NOT a bank nor do they need to concour with any regulations. I found out the hard way with a $2100 payment to me whereas UPS left the dang package and the buyer states never received. Yup, I got UPS statement that they left it but now I'm fighting paypal as they want their $2100 back!

What will happen is that they will file the civil suit to "reclaim" the money in their home state, I think Washington state, and I will have to secure a lawyer to either answer in that state or have it moved to my home state. It's a mess.

I will never use them again.

 

[fdi]

Yeah, that is a pretty irritating policy. I ran into it on a pickup up sale (for much less than $100) several months ago. I was trying to wait for payment before letting the buyer get the item and drive out of town. Once we discovered the hold I let the buying log into his account to leave feedback but it still didn’t release right away. Since I was fairly certain that it was eBay and not my buyer I let the buyer go. A couple hours later the funds cleared.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[bdial]

My experience has been that the buyer cannot put a hold on the funds, once you click "send" it's gone from your accounts. What happens afterward is up to paypal/ebay.
On my two experiences with fraudulent sellers, the ability to hold the funds would have been great.

 

[dbonamo]

eb00 will never go out of business.
they make millions of dollars a day on 3¢ insertion fees ...
they own payral and probably other stuff we don't know about ..
for every 10 people who stop using them,
there are 100 who start ...

Would one consider eBay a monopoly?

 

[Barry S]

EBay has nearly all of the market share for online auctions, so I'd say they're a monopoly. I'm sure eBay's lawyers will tell you that they're just another auction house, but the only opinions that matter are those of the FTC commissioners.

Would one consider eBay a monopoly?

 

[Ektagraphic]

Ebay is really going nuts!

 

[moose10101]

they own payral and probably other stuff we don't know about ..

They're not the CIA. They're a publicly traded corporation. If you want to find out what they own, read their filings.

BTW, accepting PayPal for items that are picked up is risky. You're setting yourself up for an "item not received" complaint because you don't have on-line proof of delivery. And no, having the buyer sign something won't protect you unless you go to court. PayPal won't accept that document as proof.

 

[nickrapak]

What I find really interesting is PayPal's money market account. Years ago, when PayPal was an independent company, they began to offer a money market account. IIRC, the initial rate was around 5.25% APY. After eBay bought them out, their money market rate began to drop, slowly at first, but even more precipitously this past year. Their current rate is .08%, which is about as much money as I find on the street each month.

 

[Vonder]

Somewhere in my history here on APUG there is a post I put out about a horrid seller I once dealt with. To this day that experience sticks in my craw. I did nothing wrong and still ended up with negative feedback from this scumbag. I wish eBay would stop worrying so much about monetary fraud and institute a policy where trully *bad* jerk sellers and buyers are banned forever. But that would take time and real customer service, which eBay will never do - a monopoly cares not one bit about public opinion because they are the only game in town.

 

[removed account4]

the whole policy seems like
it was thought up by rufus t firefly

 

[Vonder]

Just realized my web page for this loser of a seller was still up. Those interested can view it at:

http://www.wolfeyephoto.com/badebayer.htm

Incidentally, if you do a Yahoo search for "ebay seller bizzytop" you would come across my web page. I would imagine there are others like mine out there - web pages devoted to telling foilks about ebay scumbags. So you might want to do that yourself, do a Yahoo or Google search before you buy. Might save you a headache, since ebay won't let the truth be told in feedback.

 

[Kino]

I don't share the same view that many here do. FWIW, I am both an Ebay buyer and seller of photo related stuffs. The 21 day hold was well announced quite a long time ago. The transactions in which a hold may apply were quite well defined, but not all of these transactions result in a hold. Ebay & Paypal are not public services. They can set whatever terms they feel like, and if you aren't willing to accept them, don't use them. Part of these terms state that they may change the terms, so be ready for continued changes.

You'll change your tune as soon as they pull some arbitrary action on your account!

At the rate they are going, it won't be long now...

UPDATE: Seems my Senator seems to think it worth looking into.

"Dear Mr. *********:

Thank you for contacting me regarding regulation of eBay's PayPal service.

As a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, I appreciate you bringing these issues to my attention. From the situation you described, it is possible the business practices of PayPal need closer examination.

I have shared your correspondence with the staffer in my office who monitors banking and financial issues. Additionally, I have forwarded your concerns to representatives at eBay to inquire into this situation.

Thank you again for contacting me.

Sincerely,

Sherrod Brown
United States Senator"

 

[moose10101]

So you might want to do that yourself, do a Yahoo or Google search before you buy. Might save you a headache, since ebay won't let the truth be told in feedback.

You lost me there. Buyers can't be given negative or neutral feedback, but sellers still can. So how does eBay stop you from telling the truth about a seller in feedback?

 

[keithwms]

UPDATE: Seems my Senator seems to think it worth looking into....

Now that's initiative! Dead Link Removed If you click on the member from your State, you'll find a Contact link where you can typically paste in a letter via a web form.

Should you find that you don't have a member from your State on the cmte., you could contact your Senators and Reps. directly via these sites:

Senate Members

House Members

N.b. there will eventually be hearings on the issue of taxation of internet sales, and Ebay will feature prominently in that. As a libertarian, I am not exactly thrilled with the idea of yet more taxes, but on the other hand, I do think a very bright light needs to be shone upon the practices of these companies that handle so much consumer money.

If a letter writing campaign is to have any impact, a relatively cohesive message would need to be communicated to several different members of Congress. To that end, I suppose that the major grievances against Ebay/Paypal are:

1. the taxation and revenue reporting issues;
2. the lack of transparency in their paypal payment service and the way paypal holds funds, as we have been discussing here;
3. the almost monopolistic way their internal payment service is encouraged (while other payment methods are discouraged);
4. the lack of a method fully transparent consumer feedback on each sale (by the seller and the buyer);

But frankly, Ebay is likely dancing along a fine line of legality on all of these issues. As I mentioned in my last post, if you read their terms like a lawyer, you'll see that they furnish themselves plenty of latitude to skate around virtually any complaint. That being the case, the best option is simply not to use them.

 

[keithwms]

P.S. should it be useful, I am providing my letter to another member of the Senate banking cmte.; amend & embellish as you wish! I am too libertarian to complain about the lack of state taxation on sales, I left that part out

~~~

Dear Sir/[Madam],

I write to express my concerns about the practices of Ebay Inc., which has emerged as the dominant agent of private internet commerce in the U.S., and which promotes its internal payment service, Paypal, in conjunction with its auction service.

I respectfully encourage you and your Colleagues on the Banking Cmte. to shine light on these issues:

* the lack of transparency in their Paypal payment service and the excessively vague terms that Paypal uses to justify 'holding' funds exchanged between a 'buyer' and 'seller';

* the essentially monopolistic manner in which Ebay encourages the use of their internal Paypal service, while also strongly discouraging other payment methods;

* the lack of a method of providing fully transparent consumer feedback on each sale (by the seller and the buyer), which prevents buyers and sellers from screening themselves from scams.

I and all consumers would appreciate your attention to these matters.

Respectfully,

[name]

 

[PeteZ8]

Yep this happened to me too with a Nikon 80-200 that I sold. The thing that p***ed me off was I sold it cheap on a BIN because I needed money THAT DAY to pay my car insurance. I knew it would sell fast and it did, in about 5 hours. Probably could have got $50 more for it on an auction. To make it worse I shipped it USPS so I really had no tracking info to prove I shipped it.

Despite having 80+ feedback and having sold 5 or 6 similarly catagorized items in the past, they flagged it as "high risk".

They got more than a few harsh words from me on that one.

The sad thing is you are pretty much required to use PP now to shop on Ebay. I can't wait for the federal antitrust courts to smack Ebay/PP down a peg or two.

This is just a scam so they can collect interest on their members money.

PS: they still took their 2 or 3% cut of the action! I made sure to thank them for their "service" of instant payment.

 

[Mike1234]

I say stop feeding the monster and it will weaken and shrink. No offense intended, and I believe in fighting for a good cause, but fighting a monster that size is on the verge of pointless. Sell on forums and craigslist and pay a small but fair fee to the host. The monster already has big brother on his payroll, I guarantee you, so BB is only likely to help us if there's a lot in it for him. Don't feed it... don't fight it... just starve it... until it changes its actions. Fees (money) is this giant's "Achile's heel".